I didn't DM anyone, and I didn't run the campaign, but there happened to be the John Edwards campaign HQ near me so I walked inside and said I could help do their IT, next day I was a full-on volunteer.
They took me to Charleston for a rally (which was cool cuz I never been) and even got me a jacket with my name and the campaign logo on it. Was pretty nifty at the time.
Few months later they hired me and sent me to New Hampshire for the primary.
Wasn't long after that that we were no longer in the running, but was great experience.
Highly recommend more young people attempt cold walk-ins/calls/DMs like this article mentions.
Very weird, creepy guy. Doesn't pay his lawyers either.
The only context I have is that the OP helped a right-of-center political candidate in his country of origin.
From my side, the collaboration was positive and genuinely respectful.
Just wanted to share another perspective.
While HN guidelines ask for assumption of good faith, you're making it impossible to do so. For the American readers, this is comparable to someone writing an article saying that they DM'd Trump, ended up personally chatting with him and building his core campaign, then claiming they're unfamiliar with the "grab them by the pussy" affair and with his (at the time) friendship with Musk. Impossible to believe. You built the core campaign for a presidential candidate whose wiki article you've never read, and whose viewpoints you don't know? Sure.
Would you like to share another perspective for them too?
Heck, Lincoln wanted to ship 'em back to Africa and Henry Ford was a moralizing anti-semite. Nobody is clean under a microscope.
People complain so much about politics as being this completely foreign and detached thing. But it's not if you put a bit of effort into it.
If you look at actually trying to move the meter away from the status quo of the rich and powerful, rather than just repainting the pieces on the chess board, you see politicians like Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul found the whole thing rigged against them. Bernie was railroaded by the upper echelons of his own party and Ron Paul found his name magically erased from practically all the talks on the high level debates in the press to the point they would just skip over his name in the primary poll rankings.
I fail to see how it’d be any more difficult to get involved in politics for candidates that don’t meet this criteria.
We should be encouraging people to be more involved. That helps shape outcomes.
Mamdani has been legally barred from the Presidency, the position we are discussing. He simply cannot. In fact, I suspect that is part of the reason why Trump has been so weirdly chum with him, he's simply not a threat for the presidency and never will be.
Loons are also useful stepping stones. Use them for career progression and then cast them aside, you could even claim they abused you or took advantage of you and that you're excited to help <X> next who actually cares about the people.
> He has been noted for his staunch antifeminism and support from South Korean idaenam (young men).
…
> He became popular in the 20s and 30s due to his opposing stance against political correctness such as "faux feminism," introducing reforms supporting meritocracy rather than outright equality of outcome.
I know only a little about Korean politics, enough to know that it’s very dramatic with wild stuff happening, but not really to understand it. From the outside, the politics around feminism there seems rather strange.
> Lee was an early proponent of the finger pinching conspiracy theory, a claim alleging hidden radical feminist messaging in advertisements
Speaking of strange.
> Lee's advocacy of merit-based processes such as exam scores, credentials, and measurable qualifications has been viewed by supporters as aligning with younger voters' expectations of fair competition.
I suppose all the political content was left out of the linked article, but it would be nice to have more context.
Also, looks like he’s at least somewhat technical:
> After graduating from Harvard University in 2007, Lee returned to Korea to perform military duties working as a software developer (alternative military service as industrial technical personnel) at 'Innotive', an image browsing software startup, a subsidiary of Nexon.
> After completing his national service, Lee prepared to start his own venture. He received funding from the venture startup program backed by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on 5 August 2011 and founded Classe Studio: an ed-tech startup that developed personalized tutoring software and workplace training applications.
I’d prefer not to dive into policy positions here — the main focus of my post was the product-building process and what it was like to work behind the scenes.
Glad you enjoyed the read!
Thank you for sharing this short time of your (development) life, including all the reasons and logic on why and how.
With those little takeaways in between like talking to users first to understand their requirements, building an mvp and shipping it as early as possible I was half expecting the article ending with the kind of startup lessons/wisdom you typically see here on HN.
But I'm really glad it wasnt. Not everything has to have a grand lesson or takeaway. I enjoyed reading your once in a lifetime experience.